NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children under the age of 13 can injure themselves on a treadmill at home – by using the treadmill themselves or interacting with an adult or older child, according to a new study. more – resulting in friction burns, head injuries and other serious injuries,

During the pandemic, many states have closed gyms, and many people have purchased fitness equipment and treadmills for home use. Children may be at greater risk of injury if the device is used unsupervised or if the treadmill is in a common area where children are, the emergency physician team said in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. may come into contact with moving parts.

Lead author Dr Mark Waltzman, of Boston Children’s Hospital, said: “As more people work from home and children spend less time in classrooms and more isolation due to the pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of progress. saw an increase in injuries in the home.”

He and his colleagues have noticed an increase in the number of children coming to the emergency room with multiple treadmill injuries.

“As gyms close, more and more people are buying equipment at home to stay fit,” he told Reuters Health via email. “However, there is little discussion – if any – about the inherent dangers of having these machines in the home, especially around young children.”

Dr. Waltzman and colleagues used a natural language processing tool to analyze hospital electronic health records to better understand which injuries are common and which ages face the most. most risky.

They found 93 cases of treadmill-related injuries, all of which occurred at home and commonly occurred in children under the age of 16. Of these, about 42% occur when children use treadmills, usually by the age of 10. About 24% of injuries occur when children approach the treadmill when older children or adults exercise exercise, usually between the ages of 3 and 5.

Several different types of injuries have occurred. Friction burns and bruises were the most common injuries reported in 61% of patients. Skin tearing occurred in 15 patients.

Approximately 47% of patients required interventions such as stitches, casts or surgery requiring anesthesia. There are two cases of children with broken arms, one case of children with dislocated collarbone. In another serious case, the child needs to have the toe amputated.

“While maintaining cardiovascular health is important, it is equally important to maintain safety,” says Dr. Waltzman. “These machines are not intended for use with young children and if they have any accessible, parents need to be aware of the inherent dangers and ensure that their children do not treat the device as a toy.”

Treadmills lack safety features, such as guards between the moving fibers and the floor, which can open the possibility of small body parts becoming trapped, the authors write. Design modifications can reduce these injuries in the future.

“Treadmills are essentially heavy machinery that we choose to place in our homes for training purposes,” said Dana Noffsinger, a trauma nurse practitioner at the National Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. health. Noffsinger, who was not involved in this study but studied treadmill injuries in children.

“Treadmill injuries in young children are more severe than burns from other sources like stovetops or oven doors,” she told Reuters Health by email.

Instructions for use of the device should include warnings about potential injuries, both during use and when standing still, the authors write. Consumers should also be aware of ways to prevent injury, such as closing doors to rooms with treadmills, using child gates, and positioning treadmills across from the room so users can see them. anyone who comes near the machine.

Dr Joshua Catapano of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona said: “Parental awareness and supervision are of great importance to limit these serious injuries. Dr. Catapano, who was also not involved in the study – wrote about treadmill-related head injuries that have been reported in US emergency rooms.

“With the increase in the number of adults exercising at home due to the pandemic, the risk of injury to children from home exercise equipment is increasing,” he told Reuters Health by email.

Source: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/942038

1. Marini R.

More people setting up home gyms with gyms closed amid coronavirus pandemic.

San Antonio Express News. April 14, 2020

3. Madhani A.

Treadmill injuries send thousands to the ER every year.

USA Today. May 4, 2015

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Translator: Tran Phuong